Genealogy for Beginners - by Katherine Pennavaria (Paperback)

About the Book

This book covers everything you need to get started researching your family history or continue a project you've already started. It offers practical suggestions from an experienced genealogist, and detailed, step-by-step instructions for carrying out a quality family history research.

Book Synopsis

This bookcovers everything you need to get started researching your family history or continue a project you've already started. It offers practical suggestions from an experienced genealogist, and detailed, step-by-step instructions for carrying out a quality family history research.

Review Quotes

. . . Pennavaria's choice of topics, her logical arrangement, and clear writing make this work a welcome addition to the field. In a conversational, easy-to-understand style, the author introduces general genealogical topics before progressing to more difficult concepts.

An excellent genealogical guide for beginners in the field, but the title should not mislead advanced and even expert genealogists into ignoring this book because they too can find a lot of material to spark their interest . . . [Pennavaria] gives an accurate description of the massive difficulties faced by most immigrants, the vast majority of whom sailed in steerage on ships under challenging health conditions. In addition, Pennavaria provides practical and systematic advice on how to start a research project into family history and into how to organize, preserve and share results with others.

Pennavaria's manual is a tutorial for the neophyte genealogist that introduces the mechanics of sketching a family tree. . . . For youth or adults, this guide simplifies the massive effort of analyzing family and clan roots. Recommended for public and high school libraries.

This detailed book covers the basics of genealogy, including finding and evaluating records, the importance of documenting your sources, and a nice overview of using DNA testing for your genealogy research. Definitely worth reading if you're just getting started with genealogy or want to sharpen your skills.

About the Author

Katherine Pennavaria is a Professor at Western Kentucky University and Coordinator of the Visual & Performing Arts Library at WKU. She is the author of Genealogy: A Practical Guide for Librarians (R&L, 2015) and Providing Reference Services: A Practical Guide for Librarians (R&L, 2017), and writes a regular column on genealogy for Kentucky Libraries.

Katherine has done numerous national and state presentations and webinars; topics include genealogy record types, search strategies, and resources the beginning researcher needs to know about. She has published articles in Libraries and Culture, College & Research Library News, Library Journal, and WordRiver Literary Review.